Do you have a routine that you do every time you sit down to write? Or do you just sit and write whenever, wherever you can, no matter what the circumstance? Is there specific music? A place? A location? Does it matter depending on what you’re writing?
I think a routine is what I’ve been missing…what I think of as the “commute” to writing time. When I had the regular 9 to 5 type of job, I’d get ready in the morning, get my travel mug of coffee and head off to work. Thus the morning commute began. Because of how far I’ve almost always lived from my job, the shortest distance was a half hour drive. The longest? Two hours.
Either way, I needed that time to gear up to what was ahead. I would sit in my car, listen to a specific radio morning show (in which I loved the music AND the DJs, because they made me laugh), I would sip my coffee or stop at Starbuck’s along the way for a treat. And I’d wake up. I would get my head moving in the right direction for the day ahead of me.
And the same thing is true on the way home. After the working day was done, that commute was always there to give me some down time. It was time to decompress, time to blare music to get over any frustrations from the day and turn my focus onto the evening, whatever that held. I am one of those people who appreciated the commute. (Well, not when it was two hours. But anything under an hour was fine with me.)
And now? I work in my house. In my living room. My commute is about a fifteen second walk to my desk. There is no gear up time, there is no morning DJ to make me laugh and switch the gears in my head to focus on the workday. And the same is true for writing… I sit at my computer, stare at the screen and try to figure out how to just plug away, how to dive in.
I miss my commute. (Never thought you’d hear someone say that, did you?)
In its place, I think I need to establish a routine — a mini Commute if you please — to change the gears in my head. So while I figure out exactly what that is…why don’t you share yours? Do you have a routine that prepares you to write? Do you write in the same place every day? Go somewhere else, outside of your home? What gets your mind moving where you need it to be?
5 comments
I don’t have any routine. I just write when the muse moves me.
I hear from fellow writers how they get up an hour early just to write. I can’t imagine getting up an hour earlier than I have to to do anything LOL I feel so unfocused.
~Maggie
There are times I have to write whenever and wherever I can because of what RL throws my way. Usually, though, I treat my writing like a job. I just don’t have to put real clothes on and drive to an office. I get up, grab my coffee and head to my home office. (I love writing in jammies!) Once at my desk, I sort through mail and blogs, I check my to-do list (all pertaining to RL obligations) and then I open the current WIP or pull up the MS needing revisions/edits, and I start work. I do miss time in the car, though, because I often get great ideas or find my way around plot roadblocks when driving. There are days I’ll go run errands just to be out in the car so I can think! LOL.
I relate to Maggie in that I can’t imagine getting up an hour early for anything other than to catch a flight. I’ve never had a long commute and can write in 15 minute increments so not much time to think about a commute even if I wanted to.
I write on one of 3 computers and it’s a desk so that means the den. I’ve thought about using the laptop but so far haven’t attempted it.
I seem to get into a rut but if it works it works.
I tend to need about half an hour online answering emails and visiting blogs before I can shut it all off and sit down to write. Otherwise I find that stuff calling to me and my writing isn’t as focused as it should be.
I used to have a very specific routine: read email, read my blogs, write in my blog, and work on my writing. It worked very well for me until I started getting too many emails and following too many blogs. It’s definitely not working when two hours of my writing time is gone before I start writing!
Now I have two key triggers: a specific playlist on my iPod, and a candle with a specific scent (Lemon Icebox Cookies). When I sit at my desk and get a whiff of that scent, my brain drops into the work zone.
It was kind of flukey how it happened. I went to a 10-day workshop, and my neighbor had a scented candle. I loved it, so I walked to the store and bought one on clearance (chosen with very little thought and a lot of luck). I burned it every time I worked in my room, and by the time I left the workshop, I’d created a Pavlovian link between that scent and writing. So I ordered a bunch of burn-forever candles from the company and kept the link going.
What makes it work — and the reason the scent is more effective than the music — is that I only burn the candle when I am working.